The overall objective of the ERASMUS+ project “Sport Welcomes Refugees” is to enhance and promote social inclusion of newly arrived migrants in and through sport. Aims include facilitating sports participation of refugees through training of sport coaches and capacity building of sport clubs. Furthermore to develop a European framework for quality criteria regarding intercultural openness and inclusion of refugees and migrants in sport clubs as well as to empower migrants and refugee initiatives to challenge exclusion and discrimination and harness the role of migrants as volunteers (coaches, administers, referees) in sport clubs.

In the Evaluation Inception Report the two Dutch evaluators, Anita Vlasveld and Willie Westerhof, made the following conclusions and recommendations:

“It should be underlined that all partners collaborate well together, and do their best to contribute to all the work packages and implement activities […], the following general points of attention can be given: […] Up till now it happens to be still difficult to involve a reasonable number of women and girls in the local sport activities. So this remains an important point of attention for the partners. They have a task to stimulate local partners to also focus on women’s and girls’ sport participation! […] The development of the website is important to reach the set of results for providing a good overview of sports organisations that welcome refugees. All partners should contribute and identify such open sport clubs and list them in order to realise a well-stocked website!”

Please download the Sport Welcomes Refugees Evaluation Inception Report here.